High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

She nodded. “Underneath them, wrapped in paper.”

One photo fell to the floor. It was the size of a snapshot. I picked it up and studied it. Tom Frazier smiled at the photographer in an outdoor setting, palm trees in the distance. Unlike the others, he was fully clothed.

I held it up. “Did you see this?”

She shook her head. “After I saw the first photo, I couldn’t bear to go further. I’m not a bigot, Deputy. It’s tragic if Elliott had to stay in the closet all these years.” She looked at our surroundings and giggled. “Sorry. ‘Highly inappropriate laughter,’ as Zephyr would say.”

“This is the man whose wallet you found.”

The little crow’s feet around her eyes deepened. “My God.”

“Do you have something I can put this in? I need to take the file with me.”

“I understand.” She opened another drawer and handed me a battered tan leather portfolio with Elliott Whitehouse’s name embossed on the cover. “Please don’t bring it back.”

I slid the file inside and pulled off the gloves. Then I asked if she knew the name Tom Frazier, if her husband had ever mentioned him? Both answers were no and we were dancing around an important question. She bit her lip and fell silent.

“Tell me about you?” I tried to move things along.

“Me? My family moved here from Chicago when I was ten. We lived in Maryvale. It was very different then, of course.”

“What kind of work did you do?”

“I was pretty aimless when I was young. Nobody paid for me to go to Stanford.” She laughed without humor. “I went to ASU, working my way through college. Had plenty of friends. I guess I was about as wild as anyone my age. Didn’t you go through that kind of period?”

“Sure.” In my twenties, I had been driven and focused, missing out on the young lives of my friends, but what was that to her?

“I was working at Diamond’s when I met Elliott. You know, Diamond’s Department Store at Park Central? I haven’t been down there in years.”

“It’s closed,” I said.

Her shoulders rose and fell. “Anyway, Elliott was a self-made man and pushed me. So I went to graduate school. Started my own interior design company. Then when Zephyr was born, I enjoyed being a stay-at-home mom. Elliott let me collect pottery. I suppose he thought I needed an outlet of some kind.”

“Ever married before?”

“I came close.” She touched my left ring finger. “I see you’re married. Happily?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever been unfaithful?” She let her small hand rest atop mine and the atmosphere in the big closet closed in on us.

I gently pulled my hand away.

“So you have.” She smiled. She had a very nice smile. “Men have secret lives.”

“Women, too,” I said.

She sighed. “True enough.”

I turned with my back to the drawers and faced her. “Did you suspect your husband was gay or bisexual?”

She smiled again, sad this time. “Elliott was a man’s man. He was of that generation. So much of him was hidden. Again, I think it’s a generational thing. Men his age didn’t talk about what was going on inside. Men your age can be different, thank God.”

I started out of the closet but she blocked me.

“Do you want to know what he was like in bed, David?”

That smile again. Not the sad one. The one with chemistry and danger. The kind that had taken me many years of experience to decipher its meaning. I still felt the electricity of her hand atop mine. She took off her glasses and tilted up her chin. I felt a finger in the pleat of my slacks. Then it ran down my leg.